The Politics of Alternative Medicine

As the late 19th century progressed, physiological research was turning ever more towards reductionism – that is, the explanation of pathological phenomena through “evermore subtle and invisible causes”. This disintegration of the body concept, however, made it difficult to show how the body functioned as an integrated whole.

The debate which ensued is best characterised by that of the cardiac beat – some believed that the heart cells had an intrinsic and independent property to contract, while others thought that the heart did not work independently, but as an intricately interconnected part of the “whole” of the body. Further strength was given to anti-reductionist View the rest of this article